Apparently there’s a kind of music called “death metal” and one of its practitioners is a band called “Malodorous.” What a stupid name. And what the freak is “death metal” anyway? Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.

Your autobiography should be entitled "Post, Modern", which small print copies of some of the blog posts on the inside cover...

Yes, Bissage, there are only 12 of us. We control the world through coded posts in the blog which we feed! And as long as I live, the Buffalo Bills will never win the Super Bowl! (who remembers this old reference!)

I think he's the Libertarian candidate for President, and it would have been entirely shocking if he had argued for a reason to vote for McCain. Saying McCain is really just the same as Obama on judges is plain silly.

Not only are you correct in your assertion that there are only 12 commenters here, but the sad reality is that "Professor Althouse" has not paid us in more than three months. When I and the other 11 relocated to Omaha, certain promises were made, and they have not been kept. I did not go to Dartmouth to be treated this way. Like you, I have also heard the rumors that she is in India on a hiring trip. If she wants to flood this site with people who don't know a cricket bat from a hole in the ground, that's fine with me, but I would, at the very least, like to get paid the $12,750.00 I am owed.

Let's do a little figuring. Althouse is probably with CoololdersisterDell[seen in last night's vlog] at the U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee where her nephew Cliff Kresge is playing. Milwaukee is east of Madison, so she's probably watching the golf today and doing a little sister bonding.

Here's a morning coffee break story about gasoline. Yes, it has been $4.00 a gallon in Germany for years, but that is because they tax gas under their EPA programs.

Anyway, we used to live in Germany in the Taunus "Mountains" just out side of Frankfurt, in the small village of Königstein.

One evening as we were coming home, we stopped at the local Exxon station to fill up my wife’s car, then we drove straight home, about a mile.

The next morning I got a call from my wife who said her car wouldn’t start when she went to go somewhere. She said it started initially, then wouldn’t start after that, so she called the dealer. (The high-end German car dealers in Germany make house calls – two guys in a flat bed tow truck, one car technician, and one tow truck technician.)

When they arrived, the car technician ran through his check list, and asked my wife if she purchased any gas that morning or the previous evening. My wife said “yes.” The guy told her that she had diesel gas in the car (not a diesel engine), and they’d have to take the car and clean it all out.

Europe is really charming but really space efficient. Our small driveway was off a small stem pipe drive that fed about 10 houses, and you couldn't get a flat bed truck behind our car without destroying the 15' hedge and half the neighbor's yard across the drive. So the flat beds have a large crane arm that reaches over and picks up the car and moves it onto the flatbed.

They use these trucks also, for example, in the major European cities when the police want to clear parked cars (probably illegally parked) along streets, and the cars are bumper to bumper. They pull up along side and snatch the car.

bissage said - "(2) Is there any truth to this rumor there are really only 12 Althouse commenters?"

Because it is slow at work this morning, and because I have wondered about this too, I made my own list based from skimming some of the big comment threads over the past couple of months. As a gadfly I didnt include myself in this list, and I apologize for missing some very obvious regular commenters, but here is my shot.

George, George, bubbalah! You needed back end participation on Althouse! I, for example, own 16.7% of the any Althouse musical!

I see Streep as Althouse, just for the singing alone!

Wait a minute! What about the opera I'm writing??

Who's doing this musical? Maybe we should coordinate the and make it into something like Sondheim. You know, broad appeal, but sophisticated enough for the New York audience.

I'm afraid my opera might be a little too recherché. I'll can the Sprechstimme and screams, and stick in some catchy rhythmic tunes, and we'll have a hit on our hands. Do you have an outline or even a script? Send it to me right away, and I'll start blocking it out.

I say Scarlett Johansson as Althouse, just for the middle-aged guys here alone!

U.S.S. Tang. WWII. Pacific. Diesel boat. 24 torpedoes. Mission—Seek out, engage, and destroy Japanese vessels. Unrestricted submarine warfare. Commander is O’Kane. Fucker is crazy. His attitude is ‘It’s a big ocean, and if you don’t want to find Japs, you don’t have to.” The guy goes after Jap freighters like Bill Clinton after pussy. Unstoppable. Sinks like a million tons on his first four missions. His boat takes, like, 250 depth charges. It’s not like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea where Kowalski fights a killer clown with a pipe wrench. 125 degrees. Guys are screaming. Wetting their pants and not ashamed. Not one bit.

This O’Kane is so hard that one time he was sinking freighters and this Jap destroyer spots him. (He fired from on the surface because that’s the way he was.) The Jap is coming dead on. O’Kane orders a bow shot. Impossible. First three torpedoes miss. They’re still on the surface. Everyone has wet pants. He fires another. Then another. Takes the boat down. At the last second, the destroyer blows up. Over their heads. It was the fifth torpedo. The crew is in total fucking awe of this guy. Total balls.

So they run out of torpedoes, and they go back to Pearl because everyone needs to fuck Kate Beckinsale whil’st she’s still wearing her white nurse’s cap. The admiral calls O’Kane into his office and says, “Because you are such a total motherfucker, I’m giving you your choice of missions. You can either go out with some other subs and all keep each other company and suck each others dicks, or you can go alone to the Formosa Straits, which is like the heaviest traveled Jap shipping lane and you can blow shit up and get killed. Which is it?”

O’Kane says, “Dude, I’m taking Door Number Two, but I want one thing.”

The admiral says, “What’s that?”

“I want an ice cream maker for my men.”

Admiral says, “Chocolate or vanilla?”

O’Kane says, “What you think, motherfucker? Chocolate.”

So they get some waffle cones, too, and they sink everything in the Formosa Straits. The Japs think it’s Wonder Woman in her invisible airplane. They don’t know what’s up. The whole ocean is on fire. To coin a phrase. O’Kane fires the 24th torpedo. Motherfucker goes haywire. Circles back. Hits the boat aft. 800-pound warhead of Torpex or something. One-inch nickel hull. Goodbye.

Boat doesn’t sink. Bow is bobbing above water. But the men inside can’t get out through the forward tubes or through the Momsen Escape Chamber. The angle is wrong. Guy in the control room figures out what’s wrong. Pulls a level flooding the fow’d (or for’d) tanks. Down she goes…180 feet. Holy Jesus.

Survivors gather in the ford torpedo room. Smoke from fires is seeping in. Guys are crawling in bunks to die. Others are too afraid to get in the Momsen chamber. They won’t get in. First guys go out. First guy dies. They can hear him outside, trapped. They open the door to the chamber. The other two were afraid to go. They’d rather die in their bunks.

Finally, a bunch of guys get out. Of course, some rise too fast, and when they reach the surface their lungs and brains explode, and the men on top watch them die agonizing deaths. The bends.

Anyway, to make a long story short, the Japs pick up the survivors, including O’Kane. What do they Japs do? They torture them. Every day. They starve them. Every day. They beat them with baseball bats. I am not making this up. But, through it all, O’Kane leads his men in the prison camps. They are in total awe.

Finally, Harold Stassen comes. The former governor of Minnesota. The war is over. The rescue boat pulls up. Of course, all the men are delirious with happiness. They would wet their pants if they had any urine left.

So, get this—the commandant of the POW camp comes up all I.P Kawasaki and says, “I cannot lelease the plisoners without permission from Tokyo.”

Fucking United States Navy officer whips out his automatic and rams it up against the Jap’s forehead and says, “This is your Tokyo.” So the guy leaves. Everything in his country has been burned. To cinders. Like in 'The Terminator' after Skychief takes over. Too fucking bad.

O’Kane is on the brink of death. The doctor says, “Leave him. He’s too far gone.” O’Kane says, “Take me fucking home.” They do, and after a month he’s able to leave the hospital. He gets back together with his wife Ernestine (who didn’t know whether he was dead or alive all this time because the fucking Japs didn’t release the names of the Tang’s crewmembers because they thought submariners were war criminals, and even though we knew who’d been rescued because we’d broken the Jap codes nobody could tell the wives and some them got re-married! Is that harsh or what? But not Ernestine. She was faithful.) You can bet they had some really hot reunion sex, her and O’Kane.

So what’s the point? O’Kane’s men idolized him to their dying day. And they lived a long time, the survivors. Fucker should have run for President.

I mean look at all the facts. He lives in stately Wayne, New Jersey.With his teen aged ward. Fighting crime with items he pulls from his utility belts. Or his man purse or whatever. But its the same thing.

Frigging good story George. You have earned that $12,750. So Althouse pay the guy as per your agreement. If you can afford to go to a pro golf tournament in Milwaukee, you can afford to pay George his money.

Here's a blog-reading suggestion intended to be helpful. When clicking links that don't automatically open another window, like this blog, it can be useful to B click the link , Ctrl C the address, Ctrl T for a new window, and Ctrl V the address. A few rounds of those eloquent key strokes and you're ace. It has the advantage of avoiding being unsuspiciously linked to cesspools and sinkholes.

Unrelated to browsing, I for one, would like to see pictures of chickens laying eggs. Eggs fascinate me.

I was making omelets, whipping out about a dozen of them, and holding up a jumbo egg, said to my sister, "I feel sorry for the chicken that laid this thing. That's gotta hurt." She said, "No, it doesn't hurt the chickens. The eggs squish out soft then the shell hardens after the air hits them." I didn't believe her but her son confirmed it, and he's really smart and never lies. So it was two against one, my incredulity against their worldly chicken-knowledge.

I need to see a video of eggs coming right out of a chickens egg hole. I will not rest until I have this theory proven. Plus sound. Squawking would be a good pain indicator.

Unrelated to pop-up cards, I've quit making ice cream. All that cream started feeling yucky, so I switched to fruit glace. So far, I made some out of an entire watermelon and then, before that was even gone, made some more out of a box of peaches. It turnes out sort of like a snow cone, except a lot better.

Great story, and I'll be glad to validate your time card so you can get paid.

I first thought you were making some McCain allegory ("O'Kane", POW) but I looked up the Tang story, and am impressed. For historical accuracy, he only sunk 227,000 tons, not "sinks like a million tons". One sub can only do so much.

But most definitely not Oliver Stone, except in villifcation. Or stoning Stone [NEWS FLASH: 7/15/08 Josh Brolin and Jeffrey Wright, along with members of a crew filming an Oliver Stone movie "W", were arrested during a bar fight Saturday morning, police said. Shreveport police Sgt. Willie Lewis said Brolin, Wright and five others were arrested just after 2 a.m. at a club called the Stray Cat bar.].

Walter, this is Indiana. We're lucky if we can get the Chicago Tribune, let alone one of them thar big city papers. ;) What am I missing and how upset should I be? And if it's any good, who here has a scanner and a copy handy? ;)

Hillary Clinton was an ambitious lawyer who used her husband's charm and political skill to advocate her own radical liberal policies into her own twisted view of America. Michelle Obama, on the other hand, has an overbite.

Hezbollah led the country into a war that devastated areas of southern Lebanon, left unexploded Israeli cluster bombs all over the place and killed a thousands Lebanese just two years ago, and people are celebrating? I don't get it.

Maybe they are all celebrating mainly because they are scared of Hezbollah and don't want to be the only person in town not seen at the street party. You know what I mean-- that could lead not being seen anyplace else, either. Ever again.

George: One of the top three stories ever around here! I should know, 'cause I've been reading Althouse since the 4th month. Actually, I'd say it's #2, just after a Middle Class Guy CIA-FBI-Chicago cop story, which was more shaggy dog, I suppose.

I wouldn't take what I see on the news as indicative of the feelings, or fears, of the whole country. Reporting in Lebanon seems to be rather tightly controlled, and even the less controlled news organizations tend to be more feckless than fearless. (Or clueless; see previous NPR reference.)

Why do we see such celebrations? I think for a similar reason we see so many TV news rent-a-mourner ladies whenever an Israeli shell lands on a PLO camp. It's just orchestrated.

Men in shorts! I have never understood the Althouse revulsion. It's easy to pick out unappealing men in unappealing shorts, but as a categorical dislike? I don't get it.

Just yesterday I noticed two guys at the gas station, workmen covered in plaster dust and sweat, and realized they were drop dead sexy in their cargo shorts and work boots. Any street corner or bus stop might reveal handsome young guys in sleeveless Ts and baggy gym shorts -- again, sexy! Althouse, you're looking at the wrong men!

I know it has been extensively discussed previously elsewhere, but is now a good time to readdress the issue that porky pig doesn't wear pants?

And evangelicals claim our moral fiber is deteriorating! Bah!

You can't introduce a kids show today where the character doesn't wear pants.

I mean, they even named the current hit cartoon character to make sure that everyone clearly knows he is both wearing pants and is prominently associated with pants. The message is overwhelmingly conveyed: “this character is *so* wearing pants that his name even contains the word.”

No sense in getting arrested over cartoons carelessly drawn, after all.

But please, no more images of sex between Emperor Palpatine, hopped up on Cialis, and his alewife consort. Why are men attracted to a face rigid with Botox and laminated with three pounds of makeup? My heart can't take it!

Two divorce lawyer's were shot and killed in their home last night in New York City. They generally did neighbor peoples quickie divorces but recently they had a high profile case. They were defending Mickey Mouse in his divorce from Minnie. She claimed cruel and unusual punishment. Mickey counter sued for adultry. The judge inquired, “Ms. Mouse, why are you seeking a divorce from Mr. Mouse?” Minnie tearfully replied, “It was Mickey that caused this divorce and he said he wanted one because, pardon my French Your Honor, but Mickey said I was a ‘fucking idiot’!” Mickey jumped from his chair and shouted out, “I didn’t say I wanted a divorce because you were a fucking idiot. I said I wanted a divorce because you were fucking Goofy!”

Both Mickey and Minnie Mouse are assisting the police with their inquires.

I say Scarlett Johansson as Althouse, just for the middle-aged guys here alone!

Theo, Theo, Theo we need more clevagey pictures of Althouse -- not that I'm askin', mind you! -- for purposes of 'research.'

"Scarlett say 'vortex' a bit more sexily, can you manage, hmmm?"

Sweet Mama Jamma! Althouse drives off, and the Ostragoths take over the blog! (Not you, Vic!) John, I can't make the list of top 67 Althouse commenters? Remind me to set fire to you later! Oh, where is Sippican to police you lot with astounding verbal cleverness? He is the Germanicus of this blog; mythical, as Un-bama like as a person gets, plus he can deliver a lecture about wainscotting that will make you swoon!

Victoria, just for you: We Yanks have a Navy, Army, AF, and some Marines sons, so we're kind of familiar with navy ranks.

Megan had a 4-star Admiral Great Grandpa on the deck of the USS Missouri. She also had a great Uncle who was a 4-star General but that's a different story (Maybe he was a great-great-uncle?).

I know its difficult for a Brit, even a former Brit, to understand about having a navy, but that's the way it is. Maybe one day long ago in the dim past, Brits had a navy; what ever happened to it, eh?

You're in for the 2009 edition. I'm taking pre-orders now, 20% off the news stand price of $19.95 standard edition, or $24.95 deluxe edition, which will include all of your most pithy comments made during the previous year, edited for content (NY and CA residents add appropriate sales tax. specify font: default is standard geek TNR).

Somedays it feels like my liver is the size and shape of New Jersey, so I must be a foie gras goose, instead. (Force fed all these Althouse posts about men in shorts!) If you wish the 'No Country For Old Men' air drill death as cattle, hey, knock yourself out!

Another thing is the way you walk. Your carriage etc... In LA, that kind of stolid, upright, Mid-Western gallop will never do.

In Southern California, you have to effect kind of a lilting and languid, sashay. In any case, do try to comport yourself with all the crisp, and genteel, dignity one would expect from a visiting mid-Western matron.

I hope Maxine comes to the meet-up in LA, assuming there will be one. Come on Maxine, this might be your ONLY chance to come face to face with your favorite blogger. You'll never be able to forgive yourself if you don't show. And no, hiding behind a wall of shrubs and hedges outside the restaurant with binoculars doesn't count!

The very elusive, and enigmatic Maxine, doesn't get out of bed without the proper notice.

Apparently Ann Althouse refuses to give sufficient notice of her impending arrival (3-weeks) and simply expects her accolytes to simply bark on command.

I'm sure Maxine would have been perfectly delighted to host a patio reception (the indoors would be roped-off) in Althouse's honor.

But, Althouse's refusal to publicly, and directly, state times, dates, etc....long before due arrival, in addition to Althouse's refusal to engage in pre-party planning right here, directly, in this lil' ol comments section....

...means that iconoclastic Maxine will have to be enjoyed in-abstencia .

A Chicago woman plans to live the next year of her life doing everything that Oprah does. She plans on living an "Oprah lifestyle" and will follow all the Oprah recommendations via the tv show, O magazine, and the Oprah wesbite.

Thanks Palladian. That picture was taken on a very long, very drunk day. But I look somewhat normal in it surprisingly.

Quitting is too hard! I actually did stop smoking for almost 6 months when I lived in New York because I had no friends there and no temptation. As soon as I moved back to California and started seeing friends (who smoke), I lost all will power.

She's gonna be pissed when she gets back and sees that no one even bothered to take off his shoes. And what's all this cattle manure doing everywhere? I suggest a few of you grab a shovels and get scooping. And WHAT THE HELL? How did this squirrel get in here? Pogo? Have you been surrying down to a stoned soul picnic again?

"Quitting is too hard! I actually did stop smoking for almost 6 months when I lived in New York because I had no friends there and no temptation. As soon as I moved back to California and started seeing friends (who smoke), I lost all will power."

Well keep trying. I know that smoking is pleasurable (I used to smoke), but I watched someone very close to me die horribly of metastatic lung cancer last year so I always urge people to quit if they can.

I have tried those wines when I worked at a French restaurant and remember liking Gewürztraminer. I also like wine in a box because it's fun to pour.

After 3 or 4 mimosas I tell the server to just pour champagne because the orange juice only gets in the way. There is a fabulous gay brunch here in Long Beach with drag queens at Hamburger Mary's. You would love it Palladian.

Brunch to me connotes chatty banter, crisp cocktails, sharp dressed people, dainty portions of food, outdoor dining, and being with people you can tolerate for extended periods of time, considering most brunches go from 10am till 2pm. All very gay in and of itself. Hence, if any of you straight people have ever enjoyed a brunch, you might want to start questioning your sexuality.

I had a really good red wine two weeks ago -- it was one of those on beyond organic wines -- the actual name escapes me, but the vineyard owners do stuff like chant and dance around the vines during full moons and bury cow skulls full of manure. But since I don't know wine, I just know it was red. And good.

It wasn't during brunch though. Why do brunch when you can breakfast at Mickey's Dairy Bar?

Madisonman--I always avoid organic wines, because, so far, the ones I've tried have been 'orrible. But I remain open to a pleasant surprise. If you can find out the name, just blurt it out in some thread sometime. I'm bound to read it.

Personally, I prefer wine from a vinyard with a 7th century shrine to the Virgin Mary hard by the old Roman road that runs through it. Preferably the shrine has "Artemis" or "Minerva" visibly chiseled off, and "Virgo Maria" engraved over. Religions, like good wines, are best aged. None of this new age full moon dancing in my wine, thank you!

You know, the longer this goes on as an orphan thread, the more it resembles parts of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.

Maxine™ is no doubt having her own dreams of the Discreet Charm of Althouse in LA.

And, Ruth Anne, you should only start to get concerned when someone stands up and shouts, "I'm Luckyoldson!"

Thanks, MM! Ah, Rudolf Steiner! It's all coming back to me. I had a roommate in college who was a serious student of this method of organic gardening. I basically hate gardening, but the vegetables he and his various hot girlfriends grew were very good.

Interesting it's being done with wine. I've never seen any French wine, despite the 200 vinyards they talk about in the article, with anything about this method on the label. But I'll be looking from now on. Thanks.